"And this is the last place it was seen?" asked Elsa as she went numb from the sheer destructive power of what had been unleashed.
"Yes your majesty," replied the villager who had been her guide. "The beast was unlike anything we had ever seen before."
Elsa's powers had long since been accepted by the people of Arendelle. Her control over the winter had seen it through what had been very bad winters for their neighbors, driving back the natural blizzards as much as she brought in cool ice in the summer months.
Her snowmen had long since been accepted by the people of Arendelle. While they were first thought of as unnatural abominations, their ability to protect the people and tribes of Arendelle soon endeared them to the various places they patrolled. These days, many villages boasted of their wintery protectors and would claim that Elsa's favor lay more or less upon them depending on how many beasts they slew through the year.
"How many has the monster killed?" asked Elsa, unnerved by the idea that something with abilities close to her own was out there slaughtering her people.
"Fifteen, your majesty, and it grows bolder every day. Some even refuse to attend their flocks for fear it will find them and consume them like the others," said the villager.
"Well I am here now. I am sorry that I was unable to come sooner, but rest assured I will not leave until this thing is destroyed," said Elsa, hoping that the confidence she projected would mask the fear she felt.
"Thank you, your majesty. I am sure that you will be able to end its blighted curse on us once and for all," he said, giving her a large, bobbing bow as a large grin crossed his face. He looked up and the grin vanished as the sun began to set in the sky.
He turned back to Elsa, who dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "Return to your home, you have done all you can. I will see to the rest now," said Elsa.
The villager bowed again and scampered away, fleeing to his village in the hope that it would better protect him from the onslaught that was to come.
Elsa turned and marched into the darkness. The villager had said that the beast roamed in the woods around them, bringing a blighted and twisted winter with it wherever it went. Elsa didn't understand what he meant until she began to encroach upon a winter foreign to her own.
The trees here had fallen, their few remaining limbs twisting and grasping at the air like a drowned man from beneath a sheet of ice. The trunks of pine trees were surrounded by the shrapnel of a quick and cold frost, a thing too dark and hideous even for them to survive.
There were no animals to be found. Tracks would end with spattered, red blotches on the ground. The air was silent and still; not a birdcall or insect to be heard. The silence consumed the air and sent a chill up Elsa's spine.
"What could have done this?" Elsa asked herself as she looked at the destruction around her. When she had frozen Arendelle, it had been a disaster, but a manageable one. She hadn't killed anything; rather, she covered and preserved the land, bringing it back into full bloom once she gained control over her strength. It was cold and desolate while it lasted, but nothing died. This thing, on the other hand, was death, absorbing and unmaking the land where it went.
The scenery grew even more desolate as she went onwards towards the beast. Not even trees remained now, and the animal tracks all but vanished. What few tracks did remain led away from here, spilling out from every direction except the one she proceeded in. There were bears, wolves, reindeer and all manner of beasts running and scampering from the thing ahead with no regard for their companions. Whatever it was, it was worse.
Elsa gulped and went on.
A sad howl filled the air and Elsa jerked back in surprise. It was a wretched thing, its range extending far above and below the range of any natural animal, colliding and meshing into a dark noise that sent shivers up her spine.
Elsa crept forward and spied the beast in question. It was a huge, monstrous thing, larger than anything she'd ever seen. It covered with spines of ice and snow clung to it like shaggy fur. Its limbs were long and emancipated, as if it hadn't eaten in days. It was hunched over a dead wolf and was tearing into it like it was the last thing left to it. When it looked up to gulp down its meal Elsa reeled back in horror.
Its teeth jutted out from its mouth at jagged angles, sharpened into blades set in its mouth. Its nose was gone with only a pair of slits remaining were its nostrils once were and its eyes were wide and wild. But whatever else it was now, it was, at it its core, human.
Elsa took a step forward and the creature jerked up, sniffing the air and throwing the dead to the side. It looked around and staggered to its feet. It would have towered over the trees of the forest if any of them were left alive.
It took a step towards her, then stumbled away, feeling at the air like a blind man searching for an insolent child. Its fingers lengthened and stretched out into claws and it began to salivate, twitching its jaw as it spiraled out from its initial position.
Elsa took another step forward and it twisted towards her. A sick grin crossed its face and it charged at her, roaring and howling as it came.
Elsa raised her hands and set back into a defensive position, preparing an icy blast that would flash freeze even the mightiest of beasts. When it was almost upon her she let it fly and struck it square in the heart.
The beast stumbled backwards as ice covered and consumed it until it was nothing more than horrifying than a sculpture.
Elsa sighed and looked around at the desolate waste around her. She could feel the death permeating the soil and hoped that given enough time that life would return, though it would be long in coming.
She began to concentrate on lifting the dark winter when a sudden cracking sound made her look u. She watched as her ice broke and fell away from the beast. As it moved towards her, chunks of flesh fell away from it but still it did not stop. If anything, the beast was grinning.
"Sister," the beast moaned. "Kin. Blood of my blood. Join me," it said to her.
Elsa stepped away from it. "You are no kin of mine, foul beast, and I will not join you."
The beast laughed. "But we are. You are the lady of winter, and I am the lord of it. I feel your power upon this place. You have brought winter on it once, so join me and we shall bring it unending forevermore!" it cried out throwing its hands into the air.
Elsa narrowed her eyes. "I brought it once, but I took it away as well."
"Because you feared your strength. Embrace it," said the beast as it began to circle around her.
Elsa matched it step for step, joining in its deadly dance. "I feared it because I could not control it. I would never wish unending winter upon anyone."
"Then you are weak," it said, then leapt at her.
Elsa gathered her strength again but this time repelled the cold, embracing her love of Anna and pulling the dark winter into her body.
The beast cried out in shock but there was nothing it could do, sloshing around Elsa and splattering into nothing more than wet snow behind her.
A wisp of steam rose up from the sloshing snow, retaining a smattering of its body to convey to her one last message. "I am strong, Queen Elsa, and you only delay the inevitable. This land will be mine," it said with a sneer, then vanished in the moonlight.
Elsa felt the warmth creep back into the land around her, as if it had been too afraid to set foot while it was here. In a few minutes, hesitant birdcalls rang through the air and the swift pitter patter of the forest beasts rang in her ears.
She didn't move from where she stood.
She shivered, hoping to God above that she'd killed it, but in her heart she knew she was wrong. Somewhere out there was a thing, a monster of snow and ice that had almost matched her in power, and she had no idea what it could be.
Elsa sighed and began to trek back to the village. She would tell them that the woods were safe again, of course, but after that she had to go to the trolls and hope that they could tell her something about it.
A/N: This isn't the end of the Wendigo by a long shot, guys and gals. Hope you're settled in for the ride